Turning Money into Rebellion: The Unlikely Story of Denmark's Revolutionary Bank Robbers

Edited and translated by Gabriel Kuhn

In May of 1989, on a quiet street in Copenhagen, police discovered an apartment that had served for years as a hideaway for Denmark’s most notorious 20th-century bank robbers. The members, who belonged to a communist organization and lived modest lives in the Danish capital, had, over a period of almost two decades, sent millions in stolen dollars acquired in spectacular heists to Third World liberation movements, in particular the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. One of the most puzzling and captivating chapters from the European anti-imperialist milieu of the 1970s and 1980s, Turning Money into Rebellion is the first-ever account of the story in English, covering the events from Middle Eastern capitals and African refugee camps to the group’s fateful last robbery that earned them a record haul and left a police officer dead. The book includes historical documents, illustrations, and an exclusive interview with Torkil Lauesen and Jan Weimann, two of the group’s longest-standing members. It is a compelling tale of turning radical theory into action and concerns analysis and strategy as much as morality and political practice.

Oakland, CA: Kersplebedeb and PM Press, 2014. 240p.